It was getting off-topic because you felt the need to dis the treatise which you should have done here. What these mental contortions are you can't or wouldn't say and Occam and Holmes would first listen to the rest before jumping to premature conclusions.

Parts III and IV are in the final stages and I just happened to find a very intriguing production detail that most definitely adds substance to Part IV.

It was getting off-topic because you felt the need to dis the treatise which you should have done here.

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I dissed it there because you brought it up there trying to attach some cosmic significance to the timing of the posted video and you finishing the first draft of your "treatise". Which is a great example of front loading coincidences. I am guessing if you hadn't finished the first draft the timing would have matched up with "finishing the draft of part 3" or " starting part 4" or some such coincidence.

ETA: nevermind. There's no point to this. Have fun writing your treatise.

Rick Sternbach With the astoundingly short time we had to get the design blueprinted and have the miniature built - such is the reality of episodic television - I did what I could to simplify the model so that Greg Jein could fabricate it, while simultaneously trying to keep as many of the elements visible in the single color sketch as I could. We did what we could with what we had. Today, it is nice to see what the ship could have looked like, given the time and money and technology.

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and...

Rick Sternbach One could certainly look at my take on the C as the rough prototype that led to the F-117A, and Andy's as the real thing. I don't have whole lot of emotional investment in canon; Trek is what's in your own personal head, so dream of the C you like best.

I was merely trying to express that "the" Guinan we see in the alternate reality is not "ours". It is not like in a mirror universe episode that the knowledge and experience of "our" Guinan has transferred to the one of the alternate reality. This one has a different knowledge and experience with the crew members of the "Battleship" Enterprise:

GUINAN: I don't have alternate biographies of the crew. As I said to the captain, it's just a feeling.
TASHA: But there's something more when you look at me, isn't there? I can see it in your eyes, Guinan. We've known each other too long.
GUINAN: We weren't meant to know each other at all. At least, that's what I sense when I look at you. Tasha, you're not supposed to be here.

Here is the next part. Putting it into final form, getting the illustrations together and keeping up with the correspondence between some of the involved parties (elsewhere) has kept me from posting it earlier:

Part III – Alternate Universes

The existence of multiple, alternate universes was established in “Parallels”. In one universe Captain Picard had not survived events in “Best of Both Worlds” but the Borg cube had been defeated, in another one the Borg where everywhere etc.

Apparently, what we see in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” is an alternate future because the protagonists do not refer to properties of the temporal rift other than being a gateway between past and present. But they don’t or can’t exclude that it also connects parallel universes and that the event (an Enterprise-C travelling to the future) occurs simultaneously in several of these (like all the Worfs in “Parallels” returning from the Bat’leth competition on Forcas III). Ironically, it’s not the present of this alternate reality that suggests an alternate universe but its past we get a glimpse of, i.e. the year 2344 aboard this Enterprise-C.

Exhibit A: The explosion of the Klingon Praxis moon in ST VI contributed to the Starfleet’s commander in chief estimation that “the Klingon Empire has roughly 50 years of life left.” A weakened empire could have encouraged Romulan warbirds to attack Klingon outposts like the one near Narendra III. Whether this was a stealth attack hoping to frame the Federation (which I think it was) or an open attack which discouraged the Federation from signing a treaty with the Klingons (which could have drawn the Federation into a Klingon-Romulan war) and was enough casus belli for the Klingons to start a war with the Federation (and not the Romulans?) is not important. What matters is the capability of the Klingons to bring the mighty United Federation of Planets to its feet which begs for explanation unless this is an alternate universe with a much, much weaker Federation in the first place.

Exhibit B: The one all-too-obvious discrepancy (even for a casual Star Trek viewer) is the lack of uniform chest insignias with Lieutenant Richard Castillo, last surviving senior officer of the Enterprise-C, being the proverbial sore thumb sticking out. He is the main protagonist from that era with the most onscreen time, yet neither wears chest or belt buckle insignia. In our universe Starfleet uniforms had chest insignias in the 23rd Century and continue to do so in the 24th. It stands to reason that we could or should have expected the same for the earlier 24th Century (especially since it is the Starfleet insignia introduced in ST II and there should have been plenty of leftovers in Paramount’s storage). It is evident that only the ship’s commander (first Garrett, then Castillo) is entitled to wear the (combadge) insignia, but not the last senior officer and definitely not the crewmen (in whose cases the belt buckle substitutes the chest insignia). While the crew of the Enterprise-D wears belts with an insignia in addition to the chest insignia which looks like a continuation of the late 23rd Century uniform style (Starfleet belt buckle and chest insignia), the uniforms of the crew of the Enterprise-C lack congruence and continuity. Assuming Kirk’s wraparound tunic was the uniform fashion in an alternate universe (only belt insignias) and the chest insignia was eventually added around 2344 for command officers until both were combined in the present “universe at war” looks like a more believable uniform evolution.

Exhibit C: The strange lack of insignias on Lt. Castillo’s uniform is somewhat compensated by him being the only crew member of the Enterprise-C seen wearing a sidearm / phaser. While not unusual in the present “universe at war” (Tasha Yar probably suggested “When in Rome, do as the Romans”), there was nevertheless no scene in the episode requiring him to use it and from a production point of view wearing phasers are impractical, in the worst case costly (these phasers have the tendency to fall off and could ruin a whole scene, like it almost did in “Space Seed” when Kirk was smashing the glass of Khan’s suspended animation container – the more interesting aspect of this scene, however, is the good doctor’s reaction to it…). Unless, of course, it was a deliberate “suggestion” by the producers, knowing how obsessive Star Trek fans can get over such details (like this one). The last time we saw lieutenants on an older Enterprise wearing a phaser like Lt. Castillo on the bridge of a starship was in an alternate universe – the universe of “Mirror, Mirror” to be exact.

Exhibit D: If wearing a phaser on the bridge of a starship isn’t really an unusual thing, then it is definitely the kind of type 2 phaser Lt. Castillo is wearing: It’s unmistakable the TMP era type 2 phaser, almost 80 years old by the time of the Battle of Narendra III !

The producers’ decision not to use this phaser for the year 2344, but instead the oldest phaser type 2 model there was, just preceded by the TOS phaser (!) – add to this what must otherwise be an obvious (even for Rick Berman) production screw-up in regard to Castillo’s missing uniform insignia throughout shooting – rather suggests a deliberate hint that things could be interpreted quite differently than what the episode suggests at a first glance.

Thus, it’s fair game and appropriate to wonder whether this Enterprise-C really come from the past of “our” known Star Trek Universe - or instead another one, but which exactly?

Is “Yesterday’s Enterprise” alternate reality the mirror universe?

Although the alternate reality has the ingredients that could suggest the mirror universe (Enterprise-D is not a ship of exploration but of war, the Klingon Empire is about to conquer the Federation, wearing phasers on the bridge is common), the alternate reality lacks one important feature: The personalities, experience and minds of “our” TNG protagonists have not transferred into the bodies of their mirror universe counterparts. The “universe at war” Picard has extensive strategic knowledge of how the war is going in this reality and nobody ever wonders why Tasha Yar is there, except, of course, for Guinan (We’ll get to her in the last part).

Is “Yesterday’s Enterprise” alternate reality an alternate universe?

What we saw in „Yesterday’s Enterprise” was rather an alternate universe, where the Enterprise-C had not defended the Klingon outpost at Narendra III which resulted in the future and reality we saw there.
The Klingon Empire’s strength, to bring the United Federation of Planets to its feet within 20 years, could be owed to the fact that the moon Praxis never exploded in this alternate universe and/or certain historical key events turned out differently or simply did not happen and in total favored the Klingon Empire at the expense of the UFP.

Quite possibly Sternbach’s Ambassador Class design exists in multiple universes (as does Probert’s Galaxy Class design), but apparently the Enterprise-C in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” came from a time-line and universe that was lagging behind “ours” in terms of technological progress - hence TMP phasers still in use in the 24th Century, old fashioned late 23rd Century style combadges (compared to the modern one worn by Wesley’s father at about the same time in our universe and generally available to lieutenants), a shortage of the aforementioned items … and eventually a ship class chosen for “their” Enterprise-C which had already been surpassed by Andrew Probert’s design in “our” universe.

Exhibit B: Since we know nothing of the era outside of the novelverse, just about anything can be invented here. I got the impression from "Yesterday's Enterprise" that the Starfleet of the -C era was going through something of a budget crisis - still using the uniform and phaser designs from Wrath of Khan, and with such a spare and militaristic bridge. But then again, if the ever-changing starship designs are merely the technology-meets-art whim of future designers (as is IMO the only way to rationalize the TOS look), it may simply have been the style of the time.

Exhibit D: You're assuming a lot, here. We saw the STV phasers first in V, but for all we know (as Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise suggests about the II and III phasers) they were concurrently used designs from different manufacturers. After all, TOS-style communicators keep coming back throughout the classic movies, despite the basic design being "first" seen on the USS Kelvin in 2233. Do Starfleet keep changing then changing back? Or are they tried and trusted designs that outlive the others?

I believe that both version of the Enterprise-C are canon. I believe that the Enterprise-C we had seen on Yesterday Enterprise had just been refitted and was going through a trial run to test out it new system when they got the distress call from Narendra III.
Clues that I believe why the Enterprise-C was just refitted.
There was less then 140 survivors on board. Which should be much higher with a ship that carry a crew of 800-900 and haven't receive enough damage for that high of a casualty.

There were no mention of a first officer or second officer.
No mention of a chief medical officer or any medical officers or medics.
Even though there engineering crew and weapons technical crew on board. But no mention of a chief engineer of a chief weapons technical officer.
Only one surviving officer, a Lieutenant (Junior Grade), even though Captain Garrett had survive, but was kill later. There was no mention of any surviving Ensigns. Except for Lieutenant Castillo and Captain Garrett and those who was kill on the bridge. The rest were only crew members.

Exhibit B: Since we know nothing of the era outside of the novelverse, just about anything can be invented here. I got the impression from "Yesterday's Enterprise" that the Starfleet of the -C era was going through something of a budget crisis - still using the uniform and phaser designs from Wrath of Khan, and with such a spare and militaristic bridge. But then again, if the ever-changing starship designs are merely the technology-meets-art whim of future designers (as is IMO the only way to rationalize the TOS look), it may simply have been the style of the time.

Exhibit D: You're assuming a lot, here. We saw the STV phasers first in V, but for all we know (as Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise suggests about the II and III phasers) they were concurrently used designs from different manufacturers. After all, TOS-style communicators keep coming back throughout the classic movies, despite the basic design being "first" seen on the USS Kelvin in 2233. Do Starfleet keep changing then changing back? Or are they tried and trusted designs that outlive the others?

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Agreed. The most common 9mm pistol that Americans are familiar with was first issued in 1911, and has stayed in service because it's reliable and gets the job done. As for Castillo's uniform, I don't think the missing insignia could be argued as any sort of proof of an alternate continuity, because that's too far of a stretch (IMO). It's far more likely that he lost his chest insignia during the original battle and doesn't have much time to get a new one, and perhaps the belt as well. I'd have to look at screencaps again to see if any of the other crew had a visible belt.

The most common 9mm pistol that Americans are familiar with was first issued in 1911

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If you're thinking about the Model 1911 pistol, that's a .45 caliber (11.43mm) and not a 9mm. It was the standard-issue sidearm for the U.S. Armed Forces from 1911 to 1985, and is still in limited use.

The most familiar 9mm would probably be either the Beretta 92 (standard-issue sidearm since 1985) or the Glock 17 (entered the market in 1982).

For the sake of debate... if we're going to accept *every* inconsistency that the series has at face value as being evidence of some kind of canonical in-universe epileptic tree, as in the Enterprise-C looking different in substance than it does on a wall decoration in the obs lounge, well then...

... what about Picard suddenly having only three pips instead of four for that one scene in "Cost Of Living"? Can the OP suggest why the Captain received a temporary demotion in one scene?

Here is the schematic I mentioned last, took a while longer to get it done:

BillJ motivated me unintendedly to make it up when he said he felt the Sternbach design worked better as an evolution link between the original "B" and "D".
No pun, but I always felt the Sternbach / Jein "C" would work better as an evolution link between both TV Enterprises, especially since both share the illuminated ventral sensor dome, similar nacelle caps and a circular navigational deflector.

Next, this would roughly correspond to much, much longer usage periods of the hand phasers in this alternate reality of shortage (in contrast to ours of plenty).

@ King Daniel

Of course that is a conjectural assumption / speculation. But it does provide one rationalization for these 2344 uniform "oddities".

@ Unicron

Only the crew members wore belts, the red officer jackets (only Garrett and Castillo) had no belts.

@ yenny

I had tried myself to accept the refit theory but amidst different starship classifications for almost identical designs (e.g. refit Enterprise/Constitution Class, Miranda/Soyuz Class) I've come to find this rather hard to believe.

In addition, for discussion purposes, I think it would be easier to accept "Ambassador Class" for Rick Sternbach's design while the design of Andrew Probert could/should be a different class (my personal top candidate remains "Probert Class", named after this respected Commodore Probert who gave the rendezvous orders in the Epsilon 9 subspace radio chatter in TMP).

@ Lance

One of the things some of us enjoy doing here at the BBS is to come up with rationalizations for these inconsistencies you mentioned. Yes, it's "just a show" but I find these rationalization attempts interesting and rewarding.

Of course, this thread is obviously dominated by the idea of putting Andrew Probert's Enterprise-C back on the "canon" map (I don't think it ever went away).

But regardless, I'm also offering a different interpretation of what actually might have happened in "Yesterday's Enterprise".
These "inconsistencies" are probably just production errors, yet I can't exclude that they may have been deliberate to allow different interpretations, given the uncertainties and variables that inevitably come with an episode which takes place in an alternate reality.

But the biggest "inconsistency" is yet to come, you'll see it in my upcoming Part IV later today.

I've just skimmed through this thread and find it kinda odd tbh.
Why does Saavik look different in Treks II & III?
Is she a Changeling? Did she go through some sort of Delenn-in-Babylon 5-style-metamorphosis? Did she have plastic surgery? Did she undergo extensive facial reconstruction for the sake of some secret Section 31 style mission, and then they messed it up and couldn't get her back to the way she was? Or did she always look like that and the one we say in II was the 'changed appearance??

Or... did they just use a different actress?

And as it's only a movie/TV show you have to just shrug it off and go "oh well, ok then" and that's it?

"In universe", the obs lounge model artwork we're all discussing vanishes completely without explanation halfway through the series' run, never to return again (chronologically speaking, that is... it *does* pop up again in the 'past' segments of All Good Things).

Do any of us have any wild theories why this might be?

(I know in real-life it's because it got removed when the set was redressed for use in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and the wall featuring the ships of the line artwork was simply never replaced, at least until it got hauled back out of storage for that scene in All Good Things. But let us ask the question, *why* would it be taken out of the lounge "in universe"? )

What's you consider as uniform oddities is unfair. The job done is impressive for a regular episode made under TV show conditions. If they had had more time and money, don't you think they would have took the opportunity to create specific uniforms for 2344 or at least be more meticulous in using already existing accessories? It was easier after that to simply put a 24th century combadge on Jack Crusher's tunique.

Personally, I don't see why the strict accuracy about visual elements is more influent on the narrative than the narrative itself. Especially when the character who confirms it's a timeline issue as a big gun.

"In universe", the obs lounge model artwork we're all discussing vanishes completely without explanation halfway through the series' run, never to return again (chronologically speaking, that is... it *does* pop up again in the 'past' segments of All Good Things).

Do any of us have any wild theories why this might be?

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Just a simple remodeling of the briefing room? Maybe Picard just decided he didn't like how the wall looked and thus ordered it replaced.

As for Saavik: Like all recasting, it doesn't need to be explained. Characters change actors all the time. Saavik no more needs an explanation than, say, Admiral Paris.